Wah-na-gi drew a long breath. Then she sat down on a bench beside him.
"It's always like that," she said with the fatalism of her race. "Happiness goes out like one's breath on a frosty night."
She dropped into the figure of speech of her people.
"There sleeps Nat-u-ritch," she thought. "She, too, loved a white man, and there she lies dreaming. Did God make the Indian woman too? I wonder why?"
She always thought of him as a white man.
"The white woman is waiting for you."
"No, she cares for me less even than I care for her. If I go back it will be to be free."
McCloud appeared at the door of the cabin. He had tried to rest but he carried with him the sense of the conflict which he had left behind. He must know the result. Was it victory or defeat?
"Well, Hal, my son," he said gently; "which is it? Do you stay or do you go?"
Hal rose to his feet, pressed his hands to his head and then there was a long silence. Big Bill appeared at the entrance to the stable.